A Clash of Two Kingdoms

The Clash of Two Kingdoms            

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer - March 28, 2021 (Palm Sunday)

Psalm 118:19-26; Matthew 21:1-11

Many of my generation may remember sitting in children's Sunday school as the teacher used a green flannel graph board and paper flannel graph figures to tell the Palm Sunday story about the meek and mild Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey. This was the image that was formulated in our young minds and that stuck for decades - peace-loving, humble, meek and mild Jesus on the back of a donkey, making his way down the Mount of Olives and up the hill to the old city of Jerusalem while followers waved palm branches accompanied by cries of admiration.

But was there more buried under the surface of the Sunday school story than any of us realized?  And was there more at work there on that spring, Jerusalem Sunday that would cast the story in a whole different light? 

Could it be that in the Palm Sunday story, palm branches represented more than palm branches and a donkey was more than just a donkey?

We may have also learned that the Palm Sunday drama draws from the eighth-century Hebrew prophet Zechariah who had spoken of Israel's new king riding into town on the back of a donkey.  “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey. . .” (Zechariah 9:9).  But we may have missed the deep political undertones that were at play that day.

Biblical scholars and commentators like Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan and Jim Wallis point out that there was, indeed, a political drama being played out that Sunday that was, in effect, a standoff between Jesus and his followers on one side of the city and Roman governor Pilate who was riding in on a war horse in a military parade demonstration on the other side of the city. Hence, the drama was in effect a clash of two kingdoms - the kingdom of Rome on the one side, a kingdom of military might, domination, violence, and oppression, and the kingdom of God on the other side, a kingdom of peace and non-violence, compassion, equity and justice. In the words of Jim Wallis, “These were two very different kingdoms side by side, representing two different and sometimes contrary orders and values.”¹  

So, Jesus riding into Jerusalem, echoing the words of the prophet Zechariah, which spoke of a victorious new king and new political order, was more than an admiration of a few followers. It was a political statement that was perceived by Rome as a political threat that required a swift and demonstrative response. 

Rome, you see, had had to deal with political threats and uprisings before, and this Jesus who came preaching about an alternative kingdom, and calling out the oppression and injustices and anti-godliness of the current order, had to be stopped.  And the meaning of those palm branches that some of Jesus’s followers waved in the air as they hailed him as their new king?  They were symbols of victory in warfare.  Judas Maccabee had used them in the Maccabean Revolt against Rome 200 years earlier.

And so, after that Sunday's politically-charged demonstration that evoked a well-known Hebrew prophecy of a new king predicted to ride into town on a donkey, and the waving of palm branches which spoke of victory and harkened back to the Maccabean Revolt against Rome, the authorities began to hatch their plot to have this Nazarene, this latest threat to Roman domination in Palestine, silenced. To quote Jim Wallis again, “It is inevitable that he would meet the cross, a form of capital punishment reserved by the Romans for political dissidents. . . “²  Hence, five days later, Jesus would be dead, crucified on that Roman cross, their horrible, inhumane, preferred method of capital punishment for troublemakers.

So you see, palm branches were more than just palm branches. And a donkey was more than just a donkey. They were charged with religious and political meaning.

But perhaps the point most relevant for us today has to do with the clash of the two kingdoms – the clash of the kingdom of Rome of dominance, violence, and oppression with the Kingdom of God as Jesus preached it of compassion, non-violence and peace, equity and justice.  To quote Jim Wallis once more, Jesus “suggests that his followers have choices to make in regard to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God—and when there is a conflict, there is no doubt where our ultimate allegiance and loyalty lies—with God and not with Caesar.”³

When a government or government officials act in ways, or even promote or condone injustice, hatred, violence, oppression, or economic inequities against a group of people because of their race, ethnicity or orientation, the choice that God-fearing people have to make is to resist that government or government official in allegiance to a higher law of God and humanity.  Sadly, the history books are full of accounts of when the actions of our government and officials, as well as the governments and officials of other countries of the world, clashed with the principles of compassion, non-violence, equity, and justice.  Any government official who enforced the removal of the Native peoples during the Trail of Tears, who stood on the side of segregation, who was or is today a member of a white supremacist group, who uses social media to single out and malign a group of people, leading to violence against them, and so on becomes a Caesar to be opposed and replaced.

Different minority groups and women have become targets for hatred and violence because those of influence used the printed media, propaganda, social media, or other means to instill hatred and violence against them.  And any government or official who looks the other way at such atrocities is in opposition to the principles of the Kingdom of God.  Such actions are ungodly and anti-Christ, and those on the side of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached cannot in good conscience be silent.  Most recently we have heard of acts of violence against Asian Americans who have wrongly been associated with the coronavirus.  There is a question as to the role that social media played in fueling this ethnic hatred. 

Yes, on that Palm Sunday, palm branches were more than palm branches, and a donkey was more than a donkey.  It was a politically-charged Sunday as two kingdoms clashed.  And yet today, the clashing continues.  If Palm Sunday has a message for us today, it is to press us to choose between the two kingdoms and what they stand for – the kingdom of Caesar that stands for domination of one people over another, violence against the weak, and economic and social inequities and injustices.  Or the Kingdom of God as Jesus preached it that works for equality and democracy, non-violence, standing up for the weak, and economic and social justice for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or orientation.  The choice between the two kingdoms is ours.  Amen.

1Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate and Violence.  New York: HarperOne, 2019, p. 160.  ²Ibid, pp. 165-66.  ³Ibid, p. 160.